


Stitched

by Dusty_Forgotten



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 01:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2173461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dusty_Forgotten/pseuds/Dusty_Forgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joshua's had that shirt a long time, so Follows-Chalk fixes it for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stitched

The war club glances off his shoulder, and he doesn’t notice the injury until Follow-Chalk points it out, and the burns make it difficult for him to twist his head so far, but he sees it sidelong. He didn’t feel it, for the thousands of other searing pains simply because cloth touches skin. He retires for the night early to tend his injury while he replaces the bandages. The shirt is an old one, the one he wore as he fled New Canaan; a chunk is torn from the sleeve, ruined. He discards it.

Follows-Chalk finds the shirt in with the rags they use for bandages. He mends the hole in the sleeve with another rag from the box, and he only has black thread, so he makes sure to keep the edges straight, and when he’s done he sews another circle around the first because he overestimated the amount of border he needs. Oh, but the two circles make it look like a target, and he doesn’t want anyone to target Joshua, so he adds another, very close to the last. Then it’s asymmetrical, so he patterns the same on the other sleeve, and remembers the strap Joshua wears on his right sleeve (he does not know why), so he stitches two lines on the left to even it, but they look so empty, so he fills them in with stitches that look like one of his tattoos. Then he remembers the way the shirt would bunch in the space above his belt, and before he knows it, Follows-Chalk is tacking the sleeves rolled up the way Joshua likes, and has sewn a loop for the strap he puts on his sleeve, and he has to stop working because the sun is up.

He leaves it in Angel Cave while Joshua sleeps, who wears it every day from then on. It’s a gift from the Dead Horses, for all he does for them, not to be attributed to one person, and though he’s sure Joshua knows who mended it, he doesn’t mention it, and Follows-Chalk is glad. Though, less than a week later, Follows-Chalk wakes to find his war club replaced with a new one. It had a more intricate design, and a grip fits his hand much better than the others. It has the mane of bullet casings, even though he is not a full scout, and though he knows Joshua is the only one who upgrades their clubs like that, he does not mention it, because Joshua didn’t mention it, and Follows-Chalk doesn’t mind.


End file.
